pT Sh*ffgii
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g
S Sma
yy
dsrve
tp is power,
says
Saa'br, apm
nntSi
^^^i ex~
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we
't r~inqish
i bcus
w
dn'
wath
pescto
to
eve
hape
again."
Shiite teen Noor
Abdel Hadi tries
on her cousin's
hijab at her home
in Hillah. Whether
she eventually
wears a veil in
public is consid
ered her choice,
but Muslim women
often cover up to
avoid public harass
ment or defer to a
husband's wish for
a show of modesty.
in Baghdad, it was the bloodiest day since the end of the war. And U.S.
officials anticipate more violence in the coming months.
"The future is dark," says Hussein Ali Kadhim, 39, a mullah working
in the shrine of Abbas, "not for Sunni versus Shiite, but for fighting
between the Shiite clerics themselves and their supporters." The Shiites,
he says, have a long way to go to recover from the years of repression. "We
can pray openly, but now the shrines are full of weapons."
But Shiite cleric Fadil al Milani remains optimistic. He thinks the
violence will subside and that the Shiites will find their way after years of
feeling powerless. "Once everything has settled down," he insists, "then
all together, we will head toward a better life."
On the feast of the anniversary of Ali's death, Hamid al-Assadi, a 46
year-old Karbala merchant, stood outside his shop, watching the streets.
He was doing a good business selling prayer beads, rugs, and clods of Kar
bala earth. The streets were full of worshippers-throngs of men in black
dishdashas, beating themselves with chains to symbolize Ali's suffering.
It was the first time Shiites had been free to perform this public ritual for
three decades. It is for this, Assadi says, that Shiites must be thankful.
"Now we are in paradise," he said. "Before we were in hell."
BACK IN BAGHDAD, IN SADR CITY, the Issa family are no longer
looking for their son. They have discovered that Hilu was executed three
years after he disappeared and that he was buried in a mass grave with
42 other victims. By mid-January of 2004, human rights organizations
said that 270 sites had been reported and 53 confirmed. They estimate at
least 300,000 people were "disappeared" in the past two decades, the
majority of them Shiites. The Free Prisoners Society, which was set up to
help families of victims, believes there are many more. Ibrahim al-Idrisi,
a spokesman for the group, estimates the number at five million to
seven million.
"The people are so furious, and we try to calm them down, tell them
to wait till we have courts to judge the criminals," al-Idrisi says. "But some
of the families already know the guy who carried out the execution."
The Issas think they know the man who gave information to the
authorities about Hilu. But they just wanted to find his body. Haj Issa
went to claim his son's remains, but he could not tell which bones were
his. "I feel desperate," he says wearily.
The family is only now beginning to accept that their beloved son, who
disappeared when he was 25 years old, will never come home. Haj is bitter
about the lack of security under the U.S. occupation. Most of all he wants
reassurance-to believe that the Shiites' suffering will not be in vain.
ENTER THE SHIITES' WORLD Experience what it's like to live among the Shiites in a spe
cial multimedia Sights & Sounds feature narrated by photographer Matt Moyer. Plus: updates and
a forum on the direction of the new Iraqi government at nationalgeographic.com/magazine/0406.